We currently have a gas fire in our living room, its an imitation with life like coals etc. We never really use it and have a great fondness for our parents open fires at home. They of course live on a farm and have access to turf and wood and such. We are now thinking about replacing the gas fire with either a stove or just an open fire grate. The stove we're looking at is a waterford stanley as seen here:
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arent going down the back boiler route as we dont want the hassle of running pipes etc. The fire would probably be mainly used during the day as my wife is at home with the kids each day. Currently we have the gas central heating running which is expensive enough. We're in a 4 bed semi detached. The idea would be the stove would heat the living space and spare the gas heating for evening/early morning. Its not really an energy saving idea though. We just want the warmt of a real fire in the house.
We're in a bit of a dilema of whether to go for an open fire - buy a grate/fire back and put that in or to go with the stove. My impression of the Stoves are they would be more effecient and possibly cleaner but I dont know.
Any advice on which option to go for would be appreciated.
Cheers, Mick
p.s. away for the weekend so may not be able to reply till Sunday night/Monday morning
I've recently moved into a house with one of these:
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certainly burns OK and chucks out a fair bit of heat once it's got going. It has ribbed sides to assist dissipation and convection, and some sort of baffle so heat doesn't go straight up the flue - I'd guess it's quite efficient as these things go.
It takes a long time to heat up a room (about 2 hours, 5m x 4m, double glazed), and of course the rest of the house is freezing. And you need somewhere to store the fuel.
Can't beat it for niceness - but I wouldn't rely on it as the main source of daytime heating.
Stoves are vastly more efficient than open fires (several times so, I think).
I don't know the stove brand the OP mentioned, but Morso (mentioned by the previous poster) and Jotul are regarded as top notch.
2 hours seems a very long heat-up time, I'd say it takes 1/2 hour for me to get a very large woodburner really going (though I use a hot air gun to initially get it to roar).
I have a Jetmaster inset convector firebox. It has a woodburning grate but can be supplied with a coal burning grate. It slots into the fire opening, and is somewhat more efficient than an open fire as it has a convector duct. However, it is less efficient than a stove. It also has a damper which can be adjusted to throttle the airflow, but it is not a 'leading' controller, that is, if the fire is roaring away, you cannot close the damper right back and expect to see the fire die down, what will happen is that the smoke will spill out into your room! You must let the fire die down first then close the damper. I believe the purpose is to stop excess air escaping up the chimney.
They are expensive for what they are IMO and I would look in the local paper or on eBay to see if one comes up second hand.
I believe coal is hotter than wood and requires less feeding. Wood looks good of course but needs splitting
For the ultimate in controllability and efficiency it would have to be a stove, but they only work properly with closed doors, so you have to watch the fire through glass.
The traditional basket grates plus are very inefficient, adding a cast iron fireback as a reflector will help but it won't be as efficient as an inset convector firebox. A lot of heat can escape up an open chimney, and you might want a damper in addition to a fire.
My woodburning 18" jetmaster can just heat a 10'x12' room opening into a
10'x10' ) room if it is well fed and kept roaring, otherwise the radiators need to take some of the load. It takes maybe half an hour to get really hot.
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As posted above (or maybe below), a stove is V much more efficient than an open fire. Both require solid fuel and space to store that fuel. I installed a woodburner in 1984 which continues to provide all my CH & DHW from Sep/Oct through to Feb/March, it burns 24/7. I have never had to purchase any fuel but it does take a good weekend to cut, split and stack 5 tons of wood/year also you would want to acquire next years fuel in order for it to season. Just a few thoughts: Your wife is at home with the children all day; presumably they are young. They won't stay that way for long. Cherish them. Back to the point. A stove will have a glass door (doors), it can be turned right down and left safely, you can't do that with an open fire. Safer for children too, if they are taught not to touch. I don't know the ecofriendliness of a woodburner these days but I live in a semi-rural area close to an airport and a huge incineration plant. I imagine my output is negligible to the local area. If you go the stove route and put it around locally that you are looking for logs you might be surprised at the qty available. This of course involves time in cutting, gathering & transporting. Then preparing & splitting etc. In short, I give a big thumbs up to a good stove. In my case it takes at least a long weekend of hard work per year. In return I get very friendly heating & hot water, negligible gas bills, proper roasted chestnuts and, perhaps best of all, decently toasted crumpet occasionally! hth
Jotul claim their stoves burn so efficiently, that they produce less greenhouse gases than if the wood was left to rot in the ground (apparently because methanes are fully burnt rather than released to the atmoshere).
My brother-in-law is a solid fuel stove installer (part time) and he has a slightly larger version, the Stockton 6.
He reckons they are about the best value currently in 'bangs per buck'.
We are paying just over £400 including VAT and delivery which seems a good price.
The steel stoves are not as pretty as the enamelled cast iron ones but allegedly less likely to warp if they get a little too hot.
To fully heat our 20' lounge plus 8' extension calculates at 6Kw (Stockton
6 at around £500) but we are having the stove for pleasure instead of the main source of heating so can't justify the extra £90.
We have had an open fire box (similar to the one described here) in two other houses and they are great fun; a roaring fire with logs is a wonderful experience, and will heat a large room. Much more efficient that an open grate where all the heat goes up the chimney.
By no means as efficient as a stove, and not easy to keep in over night, but much more of the pleasure when it is going full blast.
On the other hand, you can slow cook stuff on top of the stove in a small casserole if you fancy that sort of thing.
Open fires should not be an issue with children as long as reasonable precautions are taken (central heating is only a recent introduction). Stoves may seem less obviously threatening than open fires so a guard around them may be appropriate.
So: if you are looking for the most efficient heat source, get a stove; if you are looking for the most warming of the cockles of the heart on a cold winter's evening get a firebox.
There are some larger stoves which are a combination; an open fire when the double doors are swung back, and a stove when the doors are closed.
The ones I have seen are expensive, need a large fire opening, and are probably not as efficient as the modern stoves with their double air wash systems. However they do seem a nice compromise between fire and stove.
Supposedly very ecofriendly - a renewable fuel, trees take up water preventing flooding and erosion, give out lots of oxygen and take in CO2 to offset emissions from cars and planes, and when burned give the same CO2 they would have lost when decomposing naturally anyway.
(According to the 'it's not easy being green' TV series book)
I think the main requirement for woodburners to work is ventilated storage for drying at least a year's worth of logs. Having a small trailer for acquiring said logs might also be helpful.
Hot wood burning produces very few particulates in a modern secondary burning stove and the CO2 is the same as that absorbed during the trees growth. So as long as the trees are replaced as they generally are in this country then they are an exceptionally green fuel source. Personally my source is pollarded willow.
micks snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.uk writed in news:1166211689.249435.18090@
73g2000cwn.googlegroups.com:
This is exactly what I am at the early stage of thinking about. My dilema is the chimney. I live in a 'typical' 1930s semi, whose chimney has been closed off (but has air brick) for at least 25 years. What I don't know, and can't seem to find out is what I need to get done to the chimney, and, perhaps specifically, where I can find someone to ask locally (Leicester), who is neither as clueless as I am, or thinks I am of the rural landed gentry class (a common misconception round here if you are asking for anything out of the ordinary!) Advice (or even discouragement) welcome!
I guess the first thing to do is open out the fireplace and have a look; confirm that the chimney still goes all the way up to the pot with no obstruction.
It is likely that the pot has been covered over at the top (roof ridge tile or similar) to stop water coming down. This would have to be removed. If the pot has been removed you would need a new one.
At least one of our unused chimneys has been sealed at loft level with ventilation there - presumably because of water coming down the chimney.
The chimney will need a smoke test to make sure that it draws properly and that there are no leaks. My mum-in-law's house (older) leaked smoke like a sieve all over.
If there are any doubts about the chimney you will probably have to have a liner installed.
If the chimney seems sound, then consult a qualified solid fuel installer to find out if your chimney will require a liner anyway.
As far as I know stoves are more likely to require a liner because they have a lower flue temperature and so are more likely to deposit nasty stuff around the walls of the chimney; open fires send a lot more heat up the chimney and so there is less condensation of tars etc. It depends on the construction of the chimney (how it was lined when built) but I think '30s houses may require liners. We were told we would need a liner for our lounge fire chimney, so we put in a firebox instead of a stove. The liner is likely to cost more than the stove :-(
So a stove is more efficient, putting more heat into the room and less up the chimney, but this may require extra expense to install.
Ask your (potential) stove supplier for more information.
You will definitely need a liner and if you plan to burn anything than smokeless fuel it has to be min 6" diameter. So first job is to convince yourself it will fit, because it will be touch and go in your house.
Check out
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for prices and parts, they are about the cheapest.
My dad visited yesterday and checked out the flue liner and we removed the gas fire. We broke away some of the bricks from the back of the fireplace and all is well. We couldnt get anywhere open yesterday which stocked firebacks in dublin (all enjoying the holidays i guess) Our opening is 27" high, 20 inches wide and 15" deep. Will be get a fireback to fit? I'm wondering whether we should just go to a fireplace supplier and get them to install the fireback and a new grate etc, The fire surround is a nice black marble with wooden surround. We dont want to change that. I looked at a neighbours fireplace this evening and their opening is only 22" high.. With a low grate our firplace doesnt look right.. Will see if i can find someone open tomorrow to have a look around. Maybe we need a higher grate..
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